GREAT COUNCIL OF CHIEFS: A COLONIAL INVENTION?The Fiji Sun, November 2006By VICTOR LAL'Wherever I go now,’ the first British colonial governor Sir Arthur Hamilton Gordon wrote, ‘the natives shout Woh! and crouch down, as before their own great chiefs, and they admit and understand that I am their master’.

His house was declared tabu: all persons passing it on the road or sailing before it in canoes, gave the tama, or shout of respect to a high chief. The people had no choice, for it was Gordon who had created the Bose Levu Vakaturaga or the Great Council of Chiefs, and had come to see himself as chief of the Fijian chiefs.

The GCC is, therefore, merely a colonial invention, which Gordon had created in order to rule Fiji through the chiefs. In fact, there was nothing new about Gordon’s invention, for the British had devised similar institutions, to rule Africa through the African chiefs on that continent.

The British also introduced the African native system of government into Fiji. In other words, the British were not treating the Fijian chiefs as special although they couched their policies in that term. However, Gordon mixed and matched titles to create Fijian customs, traditions, and institutions. He borrowed the title ‘Buli’ from Bua, where it applied to a minor chief, and that of ‘Roko Tui’ from the head of the priestly clan in Tailevu and Rewa.

It was not long before the Fijian chiefs began to accept the institution and the paraphernalia and the inventions that went with it as uniquely Fijian. They also swore to obey everything that Governor commanded them to perform during the long years of British colonialism.

As historians of Fiji have argued, there is no evidence that the councils set up by Gordon were ‘purely native and of spontaneous growth’.

The chiefs rarely met in Council until the imported institutions of government required them to do so. In 1875 the Government interpreter David Wilkinson refused to accept that the GCC was a body based on Fijian tradition: ‘The Fijian custom being that high Chiefs seldom, if ever, meet each other in Council.’ The GCC was directly subject to Gordon’s authority, the regulation that provided for its establishment stating: ‘The Governor is the originator of the Council and he alone can open its proceedings’.

The power Gordon held over the GCC was manifestly demonstrated when he threatened to abolish it on finding out that some of its chiefly members were drunk.

He recorded his dealings with the chiefs in his personal diaries that he published in four volumes between 1897 and 1912.

The disputes over chiefly successions, which are still prevalent today, were rampant. Ratu Bonaveidogo of Macuata, giving evidence on the position of Tui Macuata when asked to explain the customs of his tribe in the matter of chiefly succession replied that the custom was to fight about it.

Another contentious issue was the ownership of land, which has again reared its ugly head following the introduction of the Indigenous Lands Claims Tribunal and the Qoliqoli Bills.

The Bua Government was the earliest in the country to have taken the effective measure to control the sale of land in Fiji, passing, in 1866, an ‘Act to regulate the sale and leasing of lands within the kingdom and state of Bua’.

The Act stripped the power of the chiefs to sell or lease land and vested it to the Government, which fixed the price and shared the profits with the landowners. However, any rebellious tribe who did not conform to Tui Bua or conspired against him, faced expulsion, as the Korovatu people found to their cost in 1866.

The Yasawa islands, conquered by Ma’afu on behalf of Tui Bua, was not spared - the rebellious chiefs of Nacula and Tavewa found their islands sold to planter Hennings as a punishment for supporting Bau.

Other chiefs, especially Ratu Seru Cakobau and the Tui Cakau were equally ruthless. A year before the Deed of Cession was signed, as historian Peter France and others have demonstrated, the survivors from the vanua of Magodro, Qaliyalatina, and Naloto, following the outbreak of war in Ba, were deported from their lands and offered for sale to white settlers, their lands being confiscated and included in the offer of cession to British Crown.

The Lovoni people, who had revolted against Cakobau, had their lands mortgaged and sold by auction, and they themselves were sold as plantation labour at three pounds a head. Cakobau also gave away 200,000 acres of land to the Polynesian Company, including the Suva Harbour, in exchange for the payment of debts to the Americans. King Cakobau’s son Ratu Epeli, on being appointed as Lieutenant-Governor of Ba and Yasawa sold most of the northern islands to European settlers.

Commenting on the deeds of sale in Nasarawaqa, Bua, the Lands Commission noted that ‘they bear the signature of an extravagant of chiefs, most of whom had very little to do with the lands sold, culminating with the name of Ratu Epeli of Bau, who had about as much authority at that time, and in that part of Fiji as the Emperor of China’. Chief Ritova had alienated over 100,000 acres of land along the coast of Vanuabalavu.

The Tui Cakau had even given away the rights of levy over Cicia to Ma’afu in exchange for the Tongan chief’s canoes. Ma’afu had also taken up residence at Lomaloma after putting down a rebellion on Vanuabalavu and assuming control over the islands. The Tui Cakau had also given away a coastal stretch on Natewa Bay to planter Hennings, and also sold Natasa in Natewa, without informing its occupants. The lists are endless.

The missionaries were not behind - they appropriated huge tracts of land in the name of Christianity and civilisation.

It was against that background that Governor Gordon finally summoned the chiefs in 1876 to outline the traditionally recognised rights to land so that legislation could be framed.The chiefs were not sure of the immemorial traditions to land rights. The Land Commissioners equally struggled, with Basil Thomson concluding as follows: ‘The Fijians had no territorial roots. It is not too much to say that no tribe now occupies the land held by its fathers two centuries ago.’

In the end the present system of land ownership was devised, with the Native Lands Trust Board as the guardian of land rights in Fiji. Those championing for the introduction of the Qoliqoli and Indigenous Lands Claims Bill have, as I have written elsewhere, law on their side. However, the whole land debate and legislation of the old was framed in the aftermath of native and settler disputes over land rights in Fiji.

Sir Arthur Gordon had never factored into his policy the likelihood of Fijians refusing to share with other fellow Fijians the proceeds of their tribal lands, seas, and foreshores in the 21st Century. Commodore Voreqe Bainimarama and other interior Fijians have nothing to benefit from the Qoliqoli Bill, and it is this that I suspect that is driving him and others to oppose it to the bitter end. He even went to the extent of claiming that the Lauans pushing for the Bill will not be affected from its fall out. After all, the Lauan chief Ma’afu was not even a signatory to the Deed of Cession, which had unconditionally ceded Fiji to Queen Victoria in 1874.

The question that follows is who should be held accountable for the wanton loss of Fijian lands? Who should pay compensation? It is quite clear that it should be the descendants of the chiefs and the churches in Fiji. It is wrong, especially for the present chiefs and the Government, to blame only the colonialists and white settlers.

It was the present chiefs' ancestors who are the real culprits, for it was they who sold the lands or sold lands over which they had little claim in the first instance to white settlers, planters, and missionaries.

The Governor Sir Arthur Gordon had come up with a land policy in the 19th Century to ensure that Fiji survived under his governorship.

According to one of his successors, Governor Im Thurn, ‘It is too true that all Sir Arthur Gordon’s successors as Governors of Fiji have unquestionably followed him into the pit which he first dug. We-for I am a culprit too-followed his lead in thinking that the Fijians had good claims to the surplus land’.

It should not come as any surprise that in 1907 Gordon, by now Lord Stanmore, supported his land policy in the British House of Lords, for the chiefs had also given away two islands to him as a gift from the Fijian people.

Which Fijian people? And who owned those two lands to which Gordon had become the turaga taukei - a land owning chief in the country? Sadly the Fiji of 1876 is very different from the Fiji of 2006. The current stand-off between the Prime Minister [Qarase] and the Commodore [Bainimarama] on the Qoliqoli Bill is a testimony to that fact. Source: VICTOR LAL, Fiji Sun, November 2006

If GCC was created by Gordon, and the chierfs pledged to work under his directives, then GCC should have listened to the President in 2006/2007.

But for them making decision that law must be followed at all times, they failed to recognise SDL was ruling unconstitutionally.

So their weakness is what ended up rubbing on them from thereon.

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Johnny

16/3/2015 05:33:29 pm

Majority of the Chiefs are responsible for the suffering of the people of Fiji from all races. They supported the 1987 coup which has resulted in great suffering for everyone down the line till the 2006 coup. Can't they perform their chiefly duties without a GCC? GCC is a good riddance and it doesn't deserve to be re-instated. Just a waste of taxpayers money to have this bunch of thiefs anyway. God bless and save Fiji from their thuggery.

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ISA Johnny

17/3/2015 04:17:51 am

GCC are not the ones that control the government's wallet. So significant majority are not bunch of thieves as you portray.

Tax payer money was handed to them by Rabuka with free interest on $20m loan. They did not ask for it but corruptly rewarded to entice them to be loyal to Rabuka.

Then Qarase not agreeing with GCC to not supporting any political party post Speight Coup and CP case, he gave away $20m in grant to w/off that money earlier given by Rabuka, so to entice them to favour him and his new political party SDL.

Once again these Chiefs did not ask for it so you cannot call them thieves. Those who gave money demonstrated pecuniary conflict of interest hence was criminal in nature.

GCC themselves had handed total power to the 1997 Constitution. And that is why they withdrew to support SVT which was the party they put in place.

They are just a decorated body given the mana to sit together a couple of times in a year as they are part of our history and as traditional leaders where if required a crisis occurs that they are able to be called together to calm the situation.

Afterall the article says all they did were fight to resolve title to chiefly positions. So if fighting was the way to resolve chiefly disputes.

Then Bainimarama has fought to say no, you are no longer required as your so called status was based on in-fighting and bully. Then they wanted to bully Bainimarama but was foolhardy as it was Bai that had the 'power' of the guns!!!

History also shown by Victor is that those stronger chiefs invaded other chiefs areas and then go on to sell off their qonqued land. Then the chiefs point fingers at Indians not to vote for in fear of losing ownership on land. What a hipocrete bunch as they sold others indigenous land to pay for their own crime. What a BULLY.

Now one of their grand son is the current king holding position of President. He does not want GCC to come back as it was GCC that did not want him to be given post of Vice President.

So it is all about fighting bulls and control....

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truth

17/3/2015 02:59:54 am

The Great Council of Chiefs was only formalised by the British but the Chief's Council began well before that during Ratu Cakobau's time around the 1860s. Chiefs were called to Levuka to discuss the Deed of Cession. Their meeting house is still there in the Delana Methodist compound as well as the prayer house where church elders at that time prayed for Fiji. One had to walk up the steps to the Mission compound and ask the Methodist Divisional Superintendent for Lomaiviti for permission to go inside it. The meeting of Chiefs in Levuka is remembered in names of people who were born at that time. The GCC as a legal body is created by legislation and can be removed by the same. The Chief's Council as a social institution cannot be abolished as it is built by blood - an when it comes to the crunch blood will again be shed if Chiefs and people feel that their interest and identity as a people is threatened in the same way the Americans were threatening Ratu Cakobau at that time. For now no such threat exist as there are many avenues to influence the present political leadership

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Rokoraqwatu

17/3/2015 04:09:45 pm

"For now no such threat exist as there are many avenues to influence the present political leadership." (Truth)

The only avenue that should be used to 'influence the present political leadership' is through the process of democracy PERIOD.

We cant have two diametrically opposed political systems operating in tandem viz. (1) the quasi-feudal system of unelected chiefs and commoners and all the baggage that goes with it viz a viz (2) a democratic system comprising elected reps operating within a democratic parliamentary framework.

Even the great Fijian philosopher, Rusiate Nayacakalou, described this mutually-exclusive political duality as a recipe for Fijian (i'taukei) progress, as being a 'monstrous nonsense'.

There is a school of thought within the 'democratisation' debate that espouses the idea that for democracy to truly succeed then it has to be "the only game in town" - meaning we cant have the two political systems in Fiji operating side by side.

The political turbulence characterizing Fiji's post-independence political history thus far, proves that this is so.

If we are to learn from the lessons of history, then the chiefly system should operate only withing the traditional sphere and not try and aspire to assume the role of political arbiter at the national level. We should leave that to parliament.

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Gagaj

18/3/2015 07:38:03 am

Debate over the Chiefly system and merits of the GCC is misdirected energy and resources. Let the Fijians under classification i-Taukei sort themselves out and any Chief that gets involved in politices does so at his/her own risk and peril. With our supposed new Democracy and Parliament in place, the ratification of the Human Rights - no Torture convention etc. this same Govt. leadership still considers it proper that Dr Brij Lal and wife Padma be banned indefinitely from Fiji. This ban was applied because they were "prejudicial to the peace, defence, public safety, public order, and security of the Govt. of Fiji after the 2006 coup". Now i know why the rest of them who stayed were tortured and murdered -they had nowhere else to runaway to. Fiji has not and will never benefit from any coup, except those shadowy figures that have propped up the regimes that carried them out; from the '87 to 2006 coups. The corruptions since 2006 enacted by individuals in Govt. and by business houses and shoddy businessmen have been at unprecedented levels and continues unabated today; just better hidden. Let's clean up the mess first and then if absolutely necessary, introduce a Flag that every citizen can wave with joy and pride. We continue to live in paradise with our own individual prejudices that contaminate the landscape daily. Fiji doesn't need to change at all, we the people do!!!

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